---
title: "The Evolution of Labour: Prosocial Obsolescence"
date:  2017-11-03
category:  Essay
---

Automation has the potential to  eliminate jobs.  Some modern examples include the 
[potential of autonomous vehicles to put 1.8 million American long-haul truckers out of a job](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/17/self-driving-trucks-impact-on-drivers-jobs-us),
[automated checkouts replacing supermarket cashiers](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/walmart-testing-fully-automated-store-with-no-cashiers-or-checkouts/), and 
[artificial intelligence writing news copy](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/28/computer-writing-journalism-artificial-intelligence).
See [here](http://mashable.com/2014/01/26/10-jobs-replaced-by-machines)
for some more examples.

The fear, often exploited by policitcal hopefuls to ignite voters, is that
"automation kills jobs". In one sense, this is certainly true.  Major advances
in technology and automation often eliminate the need for an entire class of
worker.  In more localized cases, an employer acquiring new machinery or
modifying processes can lead to individuals in a partcular firm becoming
"redundant".  In both cases, people who were once able to earn a living doing a
particular thing (perhaps for a particular entity) are no longer able to do so,
and are forced to look for an alternative way to make a living.  There is
justified fear, resentment, and resistance to these changes in the labour market
when it means that workers and their families will face economic uncertainty and
potentital hardship.  There is also the possibility that the worker will be
deprived of an important source of dignity and mastery.  Spending twenty or
thirty years honing a craft, only to have it rendered obsolete or not cost
effective, is surely a great source of anguish for many.

But it is important to note that a job is not a living thing.  A job isn't an
independent entity, out there in the world.  A job is a relationship between an
employee, an employer, and some task or set of tasks.  When the tasks in
question become unnecessary or too expensive, the job ceases to make sense.
There is a reason that today there aren't many college programs teaching wagon
wheel repair or an excess of shops selling papyrus.

Trying to hold on to vanishing jobs is a short term solution to a long-term
trend.  The frequency with which political pundits promise the return of old
jobs to a hurting community is frustrating and saddenning.  The unlucky or
disenfranchised (those who have spent years or decades working in coal or
manufacturing in the USA, for example) need hope and real opportunities for
meaningful employment.

Trying to slow the pace of change or to resist innovation is misguided.
Fighting technology-driven market changes that will render a job or class of
jobs obsolete misses the point: if a machine can do it better than a human being
can do it, let the machine do it.  This frees up the human being to do something
else, something better.  In the image of 50's techno-utopianism, machines handle
all the dirty, back-breaking jobs, while humans are left to pursue art and
science.  This picture is, of course, a bit idealistic, but the principle is not
unsound.  We have already seen an enormous shift in this direction; consider
automobiles (replacing horses, replacing foot travel) or farming (machines
replacing manual labour) or construction (cranes and jackhammers replacing
muscles).  Machines can make us stronger, faster, and safer.

The technology is often seen as the enemy, as the cause of a tradesperson's
newfound obsolesence.  But machines and automation aren't the enemy: poverty,
uncertainty, and uselessness are.

One possible solution to the community and personal problems of automation
replacing workers is to use some portion of the profits generated from
automation to train workers into their next position, whether that is with their
current employer or somewhere else.  If a trucking outfit forecasts 100 million
dollars in additional annual revenue as a result of acquiring autonomous semis,
maybe 10% or 20% or more should be set aside for staff retraining and placement.
If truckers can't work as truckers anymore, maybe they can work as diesel
mechanics, or as logistics consultants, or as school teachers.  It is not the
loss of the job itself that is problematic to most; it is a loss of all that
comes with it: income, stability, purpose, community.  If employers aid workers
in transitioning to new positions, much of this fear and frustration can be
alleviated.

The disappearance of a job should not mean the loss of human dignity.  Workers
should not have to fear that advances in technology will impair their ability to
make a living and support their familiy.  They should be able to look toward the
future as hopefully as can their employers who are set to profit from such
advances.  Workers should be able to share in better visions of the future, to
rejoice in the hope that better things are coming.  They should not be convinced
to fight for the status quo and for their livelihood to be protected; they
should be energetic contributors in the construction of a better tomorrow.
